ATLANTA: Former US President and Republican challenger in the 2024 US Presidential elections, Donald Trump has refused to take any responsibility for the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, saying he offered "10,000 soldiers or National Guard" ahead of his speech that day, but was turned down.
On being asked about his actions and inactions on January 6, 2021, when rioters attacked the US Capitol Trump, intially during during the Presidential debate on Thursday night (local time) hosted by CNN, tried to sidestep the question by indicating other points in order to criticise Biden.
"On January 6, we had a great border, nobody coming through–very few. On January 6, we were energy independent. On January 6, we had the lowest taxes ever, we had the lowest regulations ever. On January 6, were respected all over the world, all over the world we were respected, and then he comes in," Trump stated, utterly evading accountability or confronting the uprising on Capitol Hill.
In 2021, a group of Trump supporters entered the US Capitol to protest the certification of the 2020 presidential election results from several US states that Trump claimed were fraudulent. US authorities have arrested more than 725 individuals in nearly all 50 states for criminal offences relating to the riot.
Meanwhile, Biden pointed out that Trump had urged people to go to Capitol Hill and had spent three hours "watching, being begged to do something, to call for a stop, to end it," by his vice president and several other Republican colleagues, rather, he spoke of these individuals as outstanding American patriots, reported CNN.
"And now, he says, if he loses again — such a whiner that he is — that there could be a bloodbath," Biden said.
Pelosi, the Speaker of the House at the time of the disturbance, allegedly refused 10,000 National Guard men, claimed Trump during the debate Thursday night. However, his claims were soon slammed by former US House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi.
"Numerous independent fact-checkers have confirmed again and again that Speaker Pelosi did not plan her own assassination on January 6th. The Speaker of the House is not in charge of the security of the Capitol Complex — on January 6th or any other day of the week.
Cherry-picked, out-of-context clips and the unhinged ravings of the instigator of the insurrection do not change that fact," Pelosi's spokesperson Ian Krager said, according to CNN. The fact that Trump and his supporters are "still trying to whitewash the deadly insurrection" was deemed "pathetic" by Krager.
"The American people saw for themselves the dangers to democracy on January 6th and can see right through Republicans' revisionist history," he said, as per CNN. President Joe Biden launched his re-election campaign in April 2023, describing the contest between him and Trump as a "stark choice" for voters between the continuation of democracy in America and its possible "destruction" under Trump.
Whereas, Trump launched his bid for the US Presidential polls in November 2022. Biden is the oldest president to ever hold office and would be 86 at the end of a second term. Polling shows that voters are far more concerned about Biden's age than his opponent's. But if Trump wins, he would break Biden's record as the oldest president before the end of his term.